


I Am Dying In My Own Death

by duchessofthemoonbase



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, Immortality, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Reflection, thirteen being dark af because i'm mean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-23 09:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23009314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duchessofthemoonbase/pseuds/duchessofthemoonbase
Summary: “Will it really?” she mumbled, childlike, under her breath. “Will it really go on forever?”
Comments: 5
Kudos: 95





	I Am Dying In My Own Death

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from T.S. Eliot's "A Song for Simeon":
> 
> https://www.poeticous.com/t-s-eliot/a-song-for-simeon
> 
> "My life is light, waiting for the death wind,  
> Like a feather on the back of my hand.  
> Dust in sunlight and memory in corners  
> Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.
> 
> Grant us thy peace.  
> I have walked many years in this city,  
> Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,  
> Have taken and given honour and ease.  
> There went never any rejected from my door."

“Will it really?” she mumbled, childlike, under her breath. “Will it really go on forever?”

The Tardis beeped in quiet sympathy as the Doctor walked in, dejected and quiet as she approached the console. She was walking the way she did when she was alone; not with the bouncy step she sometimes put on for her three friends, but in a way that showed her true age: a way that would scare them otherwise. The Tardis interior faded its lights to a deep blue: her old girl, she always knew.

She was thinking back to getting that new set of regenerations on Trenzalore, the ones Clara had pleaded for; as if he wasn’t ready to die…

…And that was lifetimes ago. She was so young then, and one day; she realized with a jolt of horror, she would think she was young now.

 _Can I really do this?_ She remembered thinking that night. _Twelve more times? Is it really fair? Why me? Why is it always, always ME?_

She remembered the moments before she regenerated into this body, watching yellow light dance and glow around an old set of hands…

_Can’t I rest?_

_Well I suppose one more lifetime won’t kill anyone…well except me._

One more. Just _o_ _ne_.

But that was back when she thought she had a choice. Back when she thought that one day, the universe would spin on its own, without her help. Back when she thought that eventually her pain would melt into the stars and dissolve like everyone else’s. That one day she could have a friendship that wouldn’t feel loaded with grief from the first moment she shook someone’s hand.

That peace would come to take her in the end.

 _I walk in eternity,_ she’d told Sarah Jane once. _Eternity._ As if back then she had any idea how large that word really was. How heavy it weighed on the soul. How she acted like it was something to be proud of.

She didn’t know how many lives she had burned through anymore. But she did know she was only at the beginning, and there was no end in sight. It would never, ever stop.

There was too much pain, too much of _her,_ stretching on forever in every direction.

She would just have to keep stretching until she broke. And she would survive it.

The Doctor, on the other hand, might not.


End file.
